The Netflix revival of Wet Hot American Summer seems to teach us less about comedy (perhaps because 40-something movie stars playing teenagers is only funny for about an episode and a half) and more about summer camp itself. Camp, for example, is a world where grownups are redundant by design. The campers are kids. The counsellors are slightly older kids. Adults are about, but it’s like Peanuts come to life, where their only contributions are untuned trombone voices.

Summer camp, it seems, is also timeless. Sure the fashions change, but there’s something enduring about gathering youths at peak awkwardness and forcing them to spend a week in the outdoors together.

Look at historical photos from Camp Chief Hector, which just celebrated its 85th anniversary. From the knickers and buzzcuts of the 1950s to the hot pants and feathered locks of the 1970s to the technical fabrics and Taylor-Swift bangs of today, the photos capture kids with the same look on their faces: nervous, tanned, graceless, dirty, tired and deeply satisfied. Because, despite Allan Sherman (of “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” fame) and that episode of The Simpsons, summer camp, for most kids, rules.

Doug Saul argues only slightly with the idea that Camp Chief Hector hasn’t changed much in 85 years. Things change all the time, he says. He should know, having worked around the YMCA camp for 25 years, first as a counsellor and now as camp director with his own kids enrolled. Back in 1930, for example, the camp was for boys only. Drinking water now comes from a treatment plant rather than a well. Campers can now get around in a canoe and on a standup paddleboard. That’s progress.

But the important stuff remains unchanged: campers still sleep in teepees, they sing campfire songs, gadgets are outlawed (something no parent has ever seriously argued against, says Saul), and they spend time at the foot of the Rockies, hiking, riding horses and paddling. “Living outside and being good to each other,” Saul says. “That’s something that will never change.”

Maybe that’s why 2,500 kids go through Camp Chief Hector every summer. (If you don’t book a spot before the snow melts, you’re out of luck.) Maybe that’s why drop-off day sees so many parents reminiscing, that it feels like you’ve crashed somebody else’s high-school reunion.

But maybe it’s something more elemental. Kids aren’t exactly free at Camp Chief Hector—their daily lives are probably busier than at home—but they are released from the burden of potential, where everything is for the future and expectations have replaced opportunity. Here, they can define themselves, free from that ever-tightening grip of parental love—live for the day, and, most importantly, surprise themselves. We hope things don’t ever change too much.

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